When Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested three men for immigration violations and for allegedly displaying gang colors at the Strawberry Days celebration in Glenwood Springs this summer, there was an outcry about such a sweep taking place at a family-friendly event. Now, there is a lawsuit.

Glenwood Springs attorney Ted Hess filed suit in federal court on behalf of one of the arrested men and his wife and children. Hess claims the law enforcement operation set up at the Strawberry Days carnival violated both the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution and ICE’s own regulations regarding not carrying out potentially dangerous operations in “sensitive” locations where families and children are likely to be present. When Hess’s client Julio Alvarez-Cortez was arrested, his pregnant wife experienced problems and had to be hospitalized.

The story of what happened at Strawberry Days diverged widely even before the last of the strawberry ice cream was consumed and the Tilt-a-Whirl stopped spinning at the oldest continuous festival in the state. Immigrants’ rights advocates charged that heavy-handed federal agents disrupted the celebration and dragged off undocumented immigrants while their children were in an inflatable bouncy house. Law enforcement personnel who had set up a command center at the carnival, countered that they were arresting potentially dangerous gang members who were displaying colors.

The lawsuit claims that ICE agents don’t have any authority to deputize local law officers for the purpose of detaining suspected gang members. Hess has asked for monetary compensation for his client because of wrongful seizure, discrimination based on national origin and violation of constitutional rights.

Nancy has been covering the diverse news of Western Colorado for three decades, since she migrated to the mountains from the plains of Nebraska. For the past 13 years, she has been a staff writer for The Denver Post, working from a bureau office in Grand Junction. In her spare time, she's been completing a Spanish Literature degree at Mesa State College in Grand Junction and continuing her quest to bike every pass in Colorado.